Yeah same here, although I discounted the first two years where no one was able to get a job and there were more layoffs than hiring, but yeah it does seem like that being unemployed is my destiny unless some miracle happens.

Hello invisiblecitizen,Yes the work at home company is West At Home, it's a very good company to work for. They pay by the minute. I made $300 month for part time when I first started, calling 3 hours per night. I took orders for anything you see on TV, music, skin care care, cookware, etc. I loved it and made bonus also. I miss it. I had no start up fees whatsoever , but I hear now there may be a background check fee. Check the website: apply.westathome.com. Also, check Work at Home Sitel.

springof70 wrote:I have been out of work since 2008 and I probably will never work again. Sorry about the negativity, but that's how it seems to me.

You're not alone. I've been out of work also since 2008 and have had maybe 12 interviews total. Thousands of rejections. Exhausted benefits. Life feels quite surreal these days, and I can't help but think of all the years "lost".

"Surreal." UnemployedSymphony, that describes it perfectly. I get that feeling upon waking from a horrible night's sleep every morning, and I get that same feeling several times a day accompanied by a churning in my stomach. I have been out of work since August 2008 and still can't adjust because the goal post keeps getting set further and further back. Is this our new normal? Is this what we worked for all our lives? North Carolina has just cut off extended benefits for their unemployed. Will this start a rush from other states? When will the government get around to at least making an honest effort to fix this? Why can't we ever get any kind of bailout assistance? I have some pennies in an old coffee can and wondering how long before they come for that too. Everything else has been taken already.

I think Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said it best in his book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich: "Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?"

If you look at the people who matter in this equation (government officials, corporation owners, etc), it's hard to find one that's actually suffered through unemployment in our new, modern, global job market. In fact, I'd say it's hard to find any that have ever hit a career low spot, or been forced to take a minimum-wage job in their 30's to 50's just to pay the bills.

I try to think of this as survival training. Hiring managers and others may claim we have no recent work experience or that we bring nothing to their company, but they're wrong. We're proving every day we can weather any of the miniscule-by-comparison storms faced in your average workplace today, and that's experience you don't gain without hitting these hard rocks of unemployment.

...and then I realize that the above translates as "desperation" to HR, which is "bad" ...